August 15 - Beijing, CHINA – A senior official from State Grid Corporation said today that ABB’s high-voltage direct current power transmission link between the Three Gorges dam and Changzhou passed all trials and is ready to set a new world record for power levels of 3,300 megawatts.
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“China’s power policy is to transmit power from the west to the east,” said Yuan Qing-yun, division director of HVDC division 1, dept. of engineering and construction, State Grid Corporation. “I believe ABB has the best technology for HVDC, and I’m very satisfied with the progress we’ve made so far.”
Yuan Qing-yun and Sun Zhusen, deputy director general for State Grid Corporation, said in an interview at their Beijing offices that the converter station located 50 km from the giant Three Gorges dam is currently running at around 2,100 megawatts. “Since June 16, around two billion kilowatt/hours of electricity has been transferred from central China to Shanghai,” said Yuan Qing-yun. “The whole country is suffering from a power shortage.”
The vast majority of China’s power generation takes place in the western provinces but is used in large cities in the east like Shanghai and Guangzhou. Yuan Qing-yun says HVDC is the key technology to helping bridge this gap.
“The western provinces have large reserves of water resources, like the Yangtze river,” she says. “and heavy industry – the demand for power – is in the east.”
Technology transfer
Full capacity at the converter station is expected later this year (only two of 14 generators are currently fired up).
“This is a remarkable achievement,” said ABB in China country manager Peter Leupp. “HVDC is a cost-effective and environmentally friendly solution to transmit power in bulk over long distances.”
The Three Gorges dam, slated for completion in 2009 at a cost of around US$ 24 billion, marks several milestones this year. It filled to 135 meters and opened its shiplock – letting 10,000-ton boats go back and forth on the Yangtze for the first time – in June.
State Power Grid’s Yuan Qing-yun says though technology and price weighed heavily in the decision to choose ABB over its competitors, another important consideration was ABB’s vast experience and willingness to “transfer knowledge” to her colleagues.
“We are trying to speed up our national industry for HVDC as well because China is such a large country and depends so heavily on high-voltage technology. The cooperation with ABB has been very good.”
The Three Gorges dam will have a total storage capacity of 39.3 billion cubic meters, equivalent to nearly 1.6 million standard, 50-meter swimming pools, making it the world’s largest. Its 18,200 megawatt capacity will generate average annual output of 84.7 TWh – and feed power to eastern, southern and central China, as well as a small part of the Chongqing municipality.
The dam: pros and cons
To date, ABB has won around US$ 1 billion in orders for systems – including switchgear, control platforms and circuit breakers – for the dam. Though critics warn of environmental damage caused by the rising waters, and of the more than one million who will be resettled as a result, proponents say it will replace 40 to 50 million tons of raw coal combustion yearly and reduce flooding (thousands have been killed by raging waters over the years).
In addition, the hydropower plant replaces the emission of 1.5 million tons of SO2 and 100 million tons of CO2 that would be produced annually if fueled by fossil units.
State Power Grid is working to duplicate the first HVDC link with its next link. “With the knowledge we gained from this project we will shorten the delivery time by [40 percent],” says Yuan Qing-yun.
ABB’s second HVDC link, from Three Gorges to Guangdong, is scheduled for completion next summer. The Three Gorges dam is scheduled for completion in 2009.